The Kingdom of Saxony

While Saxony's political liberty was thus enlarged, its com merce and credit were stimulated by its adhesion to the Prussian Zollverein and by the construction of railways. Anthony had died in 1836, and Frederick Augustus II., since 1830 co-regent, became sole king. The burning questions were the publicity of legal proceedings and the freedom of the press; and on these the government sustained its first heavy defeat in the lower chamber in 1842. In 1843 the prime minister Lindenau was forced by the action of the aristocratic party to resign, and was replaced by Julius Traugott von Ki5nneritz (1792-1866), a statesman of reactionary views. This increased the opposition of the Liberal middle classes to the Government. Religious considerations arising out of the attitude of the Government towards the "German Catholics," and a new constitution for the Protestant Church, began to mingle with purely political questions.

Warned by the sympathy excited in Saxony by the revolution ary events at Paris in 1848, the king dismissed his reactionary min istry, and a Liberal cabinet took its place in March 1848. The privileges of the nobles were curtailed; the administration of jus tice was put on a better footing; the press was unshackled; publicity in legal proceedings was granted; trial by jury was introduced for some special cases ; and the German Catholics were recognized. The feudal character of the first chamber was abolished, and its members made mainly elective from among the highest tax-payers, while an almost universal suffrage was introduced for the second chamber. The first demand of the overwhelmingly democratic diet returned under this reform bill was that the king should accept the German constitution elab orated by the Frankfort parliament. Frederick, alleging the dan ger of acting without the concurrence of Prussia, refused, and dissolved the diet. The public demonstration at Dresden in favour of the Frankfort constitution was prohibited on May 2, 1849. The people seized the town and barricaded the streets; Dresden was almost destitute of troops ; and the king fled to the Konigstein. The rebels then appointed a provisional Gov ernment, consisting of Tzschirner, Heubner and Todt, though the true leader of the insurrection was the Russian Bakunin. Mean while Prussian troops had arrived to aid the Government, and after two days' fierce street fighting the rising was quelled. The bond with Prussia now became closer, and Frederick entered with Prussia and Hanover into the temporary "alliance of the three kings"; but in 1850 he accepted the invitation of Austria to send deputies to the restored federal diet at Frankfort. The first chamber immediately protested against this step, and refused to consider the question of a pressing loan. The king retorted by dissolving the diet and summoning the old estates abolished in 1848. Beust became minister for both home and foreign affairs in 1852, and under his guidance the policy of Saxony became more and more hostile to Prussia and friendly to Austria.

The sudden death of the king in 1854 left the throne to his brother John whose name is known in German literature as a translator and annotator of Dante. His brother's ministers re mained but their views gradually became somewhat liberalized with the spirit of the times. Beust, however, still retained his

federalistic and philo-Austrian views. When war was declared between Prussia and Austria in 1866, Saxony took the side of Austria. On the conclusion of peace Saxony lost no territory, but had to pay a war indemnity of 10,000,000 thalers, and was com pelled to enter the North German Confederation.

Franchise.

During the peace negotiations Beust had resigned and entered the Austrian service, and on Nov. 15 the king in his speech from the throne announced his intention of being faithful to the new Confederation as he had been to the old. On Feb. 7, 1867, a military convention was signed with Prussia which placed the army under the king of Prussia. The postal and telegraph systems were also placed under the control of Prussia, and the representation of the Saxon crown at foreign courts was merged in that of the Confederation. A new electoral law reformed the Saxon diet by abolishing the old distinction between the various "estates" and lowering the qualification for the franchise; the result was a Liberal majority in the lower house and a period of civil and ecclesiastical reform. John was succeeded in 1873 by his elder son Albert (1832-1902) who had added to his military reputation during the war of 1870. Under this prince the course of politics in Saxony presented little of general interest, except perhaps the spread of the doctrines of Social Democracy, which was especially remarkable in Saxony. The number of Social Demo cratic delegates in a diet of 8o members rose from 5 in 1885 to 14 in 1895. So alarming did the growth appear, that the other parties combined, and on March 28, 1896, a new electoral law was passed, introducing indirect election and a franchise based on a triple division of classes determined by the amount paid in direct taxation. This resulted in 1901 in the complete elimination of the Socialists from the diet. On June 7, 1902, King Albert died, and was succeeded by his brother as King George. An extraordi nary situation had been created by the electoral law of 1896. This law had in effect secured the misrepresentation of the mass of the people in the diet, the representation of the country popula tion at the expense of that of the towns, of the interests of agri culture as opposed to those of industry. The result was displayed in the elections of 1903 to the German imperial parliament, when, under the system of universal suffrage, of 23 members returned 22 were Social Democrats. This led to proposals for a slight modification in the franchise for the Saxon diet (1904), which were not accepted. In the elections of 1906, however, only 8 of the Social Democrats succeeded in retaining their seats. In 1907 the Government announced their intention of modifying the electoral system in Saxony by the adding of representation for certain pro fessions to that of the three classes of the electorate. This was, however, far from satisfying the parties of the extreme Left, and the strength of Social Democracy in Saxony was even more strik ingly displayed in 1909 when, in spite of plural voting, under a complicated franchise, 25 Socialist members were returned to the Saxon diet.